{"product_id":"going-bovine-isbn-9780385733984","title":"Going Bovine","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003ethe author of the Gemma Doyle trilogy and The Diviners series, this\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e groundbreaking \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller and winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for literary excellence is \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"smart, funny, and layered,\" \u003cb\u003eraves \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get  through high school—and life in general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot  to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die.  Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel\/possible  hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure—if he’s willing  to go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and  a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America . . . into the heart of what matters most.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom acclaimed author Libba Bray comes a dark comedic journey that poses the questions: Why are we here? What is real? What makes microwave popcorn so good? Why must we die? And how do we really learn to live? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A hilarious and hallucinatory quest.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Sublimely surreal.\"—\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eLibba Bray's fabulous new book will, with any justice, be a cult classic. \u003c\/b\u003eThe kind of book you take with you to college, in the hopes that your roommate will turn out to have packed their own copy, too. Reading it is like discovering an alternate version of \u003ci\u003eThe Phantom Tollbooth\u003c\/i\u003e, where Holden Caulfield has hit Milo over the head and stolen his car, his token, and his tollbooth. There's adventure and tragedy here, a sprinkling of romance, musical interludes, a battle-ready yard gnome who's also a Norse God, and practically a chorus line of physicists. Which reminds me: will someone, someday, take \u003ci\u003eGoing Bovine \u003c\/i\u003eand turn it into a musical, preferably a rock opera? I want the sound track, the program, the T-shirt, and front row tickets.\"—\u003cb\u003eKelly Link, author of \u003ci\u003eGet in Trouble\u003c\/i\u003e, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Libba Bray not only breaks the mold of the ubiquitous dying-teenager genre—she smashes it and grinds the tiny pieces into the sidewalk. For the record, I'd go anywhere she wanted to take me.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Offer this to fans of Douglas Adams's \u003ci\u003eHitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy \u003c\/i\u003eseeking more inspired lunacy.\"—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"An unforgettable, nearly indefinable fantasy . . . wholly unique, ambitious, tender, thought-provoking, and often fall-off-the-chair funny.\"—\u003ci\u003eBooklist, \u003c\/i\u003eStarred Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Readers will have a great time.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe Horn Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"It's a trip worth taking.\"—\u003ci\u003eSLJ\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Here's one book about dying that has a wicked sense of humor.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe Denver Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A laugh-out-loud tear-jerking fantastical voyage into the meaning of what is real in life.\"—\u003ci\u003eVOYA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A very messed-up book, but in a good way. . . .Hilarious, random, surreal and thought-provoking.\"—Guys Lit Wire\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e's 8 Great Road-Trip Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the Michael L. Printz Award \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn Indie Next Pick\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003eBooks for Youth Editors' Choice\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn ALA Best Book for Young Adults\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Chicago Public Library Best of the Best book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age\u003c\/b\u003eLibba Bray is the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of the Gemma Doyle trilogy (\u003ci\u003eA Great and Terrible Beauty\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRebel Angels\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Sweet Far Thing\u003c\/i\u003e); the Michael L. Printz Award-winning \u003ci\u003eGoing Bovine\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eBeauty Queens\u003c\/i\u003e, an \u003ci\u003eL.A. Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize finalist; and The Diviners series. She is originally from Texas but makes her home in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, son, and two sociopathic cats. Visit her at www.libbabray.com and at @libbabray on Twitter and Instagram.\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER ONE\u003cbr\u003eIn Which I Introduce Myself\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m sixteen now, so you can imagine that’s left me with quite a few days of major suckage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike Career Day? Really? Do we need to devote an entire six hours out of the high school year to having “life counselors” tell you all the jobs you could potentially blow at? Is there a reason for dodgeball? Pep rallies? Rad soda commercials featuring Parker Day’s smug, fake-tanned face? I ask you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut back to the best day of my life, Disney, and my near-death experience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI know what you’re thinking: WTF? Who dies at Disney World? It’s full of spinning teacups and magical princesses and big-assed chipmunks walking around waving like it’s absolutely normal for jumbo-sized stuffed animals to come to life and pose for photo ops. Like, seriously.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t remember a whole lot about it. Like I said, I was five. I do remember that it was hot. Surreal hot. The kind of hot that makes people shell out their life savings for a bottle of water without even bitching about it. Even the stuffed animals started looking less like smiling, playful woodland creatures and more like furry POWs on a forced march through Toonland. That’s how we ended up on the subterranean It’s a Small World ride and how I nearly bit it at the place where America goes for fun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t know if you’ve ever experienced the Small World ride. If so, you can skip this next part. Honestly, you won’t hurt my feelings, and I won’t tell the other people reading this what an asshole you are the minute you go into the other room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere was I?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh, right—so much we share, time aware, small world. After all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo. Small World ride, brief sum-up: Long-ass wait in incredibly slow-moving line. Then you’re put into this floating barge and set adrift on a river that winds through a smiling underworld of animatronic kids from every country on the planet singing along in their various native tongues to the extremely catchy, upbeat song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDid I mention it’s about a ten-minute ride?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf the same song?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn English, Spanish, Swahili, and Japanese?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m not going to lie to you; I loved it. Dude, I said to myself, this is the shit. Or something like that in five-year-old speak. I want to live in this new Utopia of singing children of all nations. With luck, the Mexican kids will let me wear their que festivo sombreros. And the smiling Swedes will welcome me into their happy Nordic hoedown. Välkommen, y’all. I will ride the pink fuzzy camel in some vaguely defined Middle Eastern country (but the one with pink fuzzy camels) and shake a leg with the can-can dancers in Gay Paree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBonjour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBienvenido.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGuten Tag.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJambo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was with the three people who were my world—Mom, Dad, my twin sister, Jenna—and for one crazy moment, we were all laughing and smiling and sharing the same experience, and it was good. Maybe it was too good. Because I started to get scared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t know exactly how I made the connection, but right around Iceland, apparently, I got the idea that this was the after?life. Sure, I had heatstroke and had eaten enough sugar to induce coma, but really, it makes sense in a weird way. It’s dark. It’s creepy. And suddenly, everybody’s getting along a little too well, singing the same song. Or maybe it had to do with my mom. She used to teach English classics, heavy on the mythology, at the university B.C. (Before Children) and liked to pepper her bedtime stories with occasional bits about Valhalla or Ovid or the River Styx leading to the underworld and other cheery sweet-dreams matter. We’re a fun crew. You should see us on holidays.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhatever it was, I was convinced that this ride was where you went to die. I would be separated from my family forever and end up in some part of the underworld where smiling kid robots in boater hats sang nonstop in Portuguese. I had to keep that from happening. And then—O Happy Day! Salvation! Right behind the Eskimo igloo (this was before they were the more politically correct but slightly naughty-sounding Inuits), I saw this little door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mommy, where does that door go to?” I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I don’t know, honey.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were headed for certain death on the River Styx. But somehow I knew that if I could just get to that little door, everything would be okay. I could stop the ride and save us all. That was pretty much it for me. My five-year-old freak-out meter totally tripped. I slipped free of the seat and splashed into the fishy-smelling water, away from the doe-eyed, pinafored girl puppet singing, “En värld full av skratt, en värld av tårar” (Swedish, I’m told, for “It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears”).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe thing is, I didn’t know how to swim yet. But apparently, I was pretty good at sinking. You know that warning about how kids can drown in very little water? Quite true if the kid panics and forgets to close his mouth. You can imagine my surprise when the water hit my lungs and I did not immediately start singing, “There’s so much that we share.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last thing I remember before I started to lose consciousness was my mom screaming to stop the ride while crushing Jenna to her chest in case she got the urge to jump too. Above me, lights and sound blended into a wavy distortion, everything muted like a carnival heard from a mile away. And then I had the weirdest thought: They’re stopping the ride. I got them to stop the ride.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t remember a whole lot after that, just fuzzy memo?ries filled in by other people’s memories. The story goes that my dad dove in and pulled me out, dropping me right beside the igloo, and administered CPR. Official Disney cast members scampered out along the narrow edge of EskimoSoontoBeInuit-land, yammering into their walkie-talkies that the situation was under control. Slack-jawed tourists snapped pictures. An official Disney ambulance came and whisked me away to an ER, where I was pronounced pukey but okay. We went back to the park for free—I guess they were afraid we’d sue—and I got to go on the rides as much as I wanted without waiting in line at all because everybody was just so glad I was alive. It was the best vacation we ever took. Of course, I think it was also the last vacation we ever took.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was Mom who tried to get the answers out of me later, once Jenna had fallen asleep and Dad was nursing his nerves with a vodka tonic, courtesy of the hotel’s minibar. I was sitting in the bathtub with the nonskid flower appliqués on the bottom. It had taken two shampoos to get the flotsam and jetsam of a small world out of my hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Cameron,” she asked, pulling me onto her lap for a vigorous towel-drying. “Why did you jump into the water, honey? Did the ride scare you?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t know how to answer her, so I just nodded. All the adrenaline I’d felt earlier seemed to pool in my limbs, weighing me down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Oh, honey, you know it’s not real, don’t you? It’s just a ride.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Just a ride,” I repeated, and felt it sink in deep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe thing is, before they pulled me out, everything had seemed made of magic. Like I really believed in this crazy dream. But the minute I came to on the hard, glittery, spray-painted, fake snow and saw that marionette boy pulling the same plastic fish out of the hole again and again, I realized it was all a big fake. The realest thing I’d ever experienced was that moment under the water when I almost died.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd in a way, I’ve been dying ever since.","brand":"Ember","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299808465125,"sku":"NP9780385733984","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780385733984.jpg?v=1767728277","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/going-bovine-isbn-9780385733984","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}